The communication of data over networks has become an important, if not essential, way for many organizations and individuals to communicate. The Internet is a global network connecting millions of computers in which any computer connected to the Internet can potentially receive data from and send data to any other computer connected to the Internet. The Internet provides a variety of methods with which to communicate data, one of the most ubiquitous of which is the World Wide Web. Other methods for communicating data over the Internet include e-mail, usenet newsgroups, telnet, FTP, audio streams, and video streams.
Users typically access the Internet either through a computer connected to an Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) or computer connected to a local area network (“LAN”) provided by an organization, which is in turn, connected to the ISP. The network service provider provides a point of presence to interface with the Internet backbone. Routers and switches in the backbone direct data traffic between the various ISPs.
As the number of networked devices has increased so, too, has the amount and nature of network traffic. One unfortunate side effect is the evolution of destructive or unauthorized access to the data or operations of networked devices. While the option of simply removing all network access from an abusive or abnormal client remains, business etiquette often predicates the need to constrain a client's access, rather than to remove it. Additionally, when a client device is inadvertently tainted or “infected” by a software virus or worm, the user of the client device may be unaware that the device is abnormally affecting the network. As a result, various methods to detect and limit abnormal or abusive use of network resources or connected devices have resulted in a need to establish a controlled environment in a network in order that abusive or abnormal clients can be constrained.